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The End of Anthropology, Again: On the Future of an In/Discipline
Author(s) -
Comaroff John
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
american anthropologist
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.51
H-Index - 85
eISSN - 1548-1433
pISSN - 0002-7294
DOI - 10.1111/j.1548-1433.2010.01273.x
Subject(s) - dialectic , subject matter , colonialism , sociology , subject (documents) , object (grammar) , globalization , epistemology , politics , anthropology , social science , aesthetics , political science , philosophy , law , linguistics , pedagogy , library science , computer science , curriculum
The “End of Anthropology” has been predicted many times and for many different reasons—among them, its disappearing object of study, its political imbrication in colonialism, the loss of its distinctive concepts, and the effects of globalization in diffusing its received subject matter. And yet, both institutionally and discursively, the discipline is very much alive, producing new species of knowledge, new theoretical discourses, new empirical interests, new arguments. How, in light of this, do we read the history of its present? By what means is its “end” to be avoided, its future(s) assured? Where should it go from here, empirically, methodologically, theoretically? One answer lies in a new in discipline, a discourse that, in dialectic tension with the contemporary world in which it is embedded, redefines the scale, the conceptual foundations, and the techniques of knowledge production of anthropology.